


Alcohol

by Kuroeia (Empatheia)



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-02
Updated: 2007-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-08 15:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empatheia/pseuds/Kuroeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is love to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alcohol

He had never seen this before, not in the long decades he'd been beside her.

In retrospect, he was glad, because it was not pretty at all. There was nakedness, which was a point in its favour, but it was a very sticky and uncoordinated nakedness, which took away most of the attractiveness.

There was also rather a lot of profanity, and broken objects littering the floor and all nearby flat surfaces, and not nearly enough light. It didn't smell very good either.

This was a depressed and intoxicated Kuchiki Rukia, and though he loved it because it too was Rukia, he vastly preferred her sober and aloof self to this broken, paper-thin being in his arms.

"Isn't fair," she muttered into his chest, and by the looks of it she didn't even realize it was a chest she was smearing her cheek over. It could have been a wall, or a refridgerator, or a lampstand for all she seemed to know. "Isn't _fair._ " She could not seem to get past those two words to say the rest of it: _Why did he have to go? Why didn't he come back?_

Renji didn't know the answers. He just wanted her to smile.

"I know," he said again, patiently stroking her matted hair and waiting for her to pass out so he could clean her up and put her to sleep. "I know it isn't, but that's just the way it is. Go to sleep, Rukia."

"Renji," she whispered. "Do you love me?"

"Always," he answered without a beat of hesitation, looking away so she wouldn't see the expression on his face as he said it. However many times she needed to hear it was how many times he would say it, no matter how brutally the words lacerated his throat coming up.

She sighed and smiled a bit. Then she closed her eyes and was gone into worlds beyond his imagining.

This was love to Abarai Renji, and he was content with it because it was all he could have.

**X**


End file.
